Thursday, December 3, 2009

The Secret Hour (Midnighters #1)

Jessica Day moves to the small town of Bixby, Oklahoma with her family when her mom gets a new job. At first, everything seems normal. That is until midnight rolls around and the world around her freezes. Jessica learns she is a "Midnighter," one of the handful of teens in town who can live in the blue time between midnight and 1 am. But something about Jessica is different and she attracts trouble in the form of the darklings who live in the blue time, ancient creatures who are out for Jessica. With the help of the other four Midnighters, Jessica must fight the darklings and learn why they want to kill her so much.

"Something about you is so ... 11:59. You don't belong." p.124

So this is Scott Westerfeld's first young adult book. I've read all the rest except this series and Leviathan, which just came out. It was really good and I enjoyed it. The concept is great though less original than his later books. It came across as appropriately chilling and suspenseful and occasionally funny and moved along at a nice pace. I liked Jessica and Jonathan and Dess and I'm not real sure about Melissa but Rex was okay. I've always found the idea of ancient creatures intriguing (must be why I'm a Buffy fan) and the mythology is great in this book without being too overwhelming, just enough to tantalize. I got a good image out of the book and I could definitely see it as a movie.

This one felt younger than his other books to me, so I didn't like it quite as much, but I did enjoy the series. You learn a lot more about Melissa in book 2 and I really came to like her a lot. Dess as well. The second book was by far my favorite.

I agree with what Amanda said in terms of learning more about each of the characters as the series goes along. Personally I loved this series. It's so different from Uglies etc that I cant' really compare them. It would be great to see as a movie!

About review copies

Currently I am not accepting unsolicited books for review. If you e-mail me, there's a good chance I won't even read it. I don't have the time right now to review everything that comes my way and I wouldn't want to do an injustice to anyone's book with my slow reading schedule. Thank you.